1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a developing apparatus equipped with a film conveying mechanism which conveys a film to be developed through various treating tanks.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Development of films, particularly color films, generally includes the steps of development, bleaching, fixing, rinsing and drying. The number of steps required for development of color films is generally large as compared with that required for the development of monochrome films.
For this reason, these days, all the steps required for development of films are automatically carried out by means of a conveyor system. A typical automatic developing apparatus adopting the conveyer system has conventionally been arranged such that a film pulled out of a film cassette by a feed mechanism is passed by a conveyor belt through treating tanks containing the respective treating solutions, such as a developing solution, a bleaching solution, a fixing solution, rinsing water and a stabilizing solution, and is then passed through a dryer before being deposited in a predetermined box.
This type of conventional automatic developing apparatus, however, suffers the following disadvantages: In the developing apparatus, the film is moved through various tanks together with the conveyor belt in such a manner that one end of the film is attached to the belt by a clip. Therefore, a relatively large amount of the treating solution contained in one tank is undesirably carried by the conveyor belt to the subsequent tank, thus causing an increase in the consumption of each treating solution as well as quick contamination of the treating solution in each tank. In the conventional automatic developing apparatus, further, it is necessary to conduct an operation for releasing the film from the clip and depositing the former in the box at the end of the developing process and, therefore, handling of the film is troublesome.
Another type of conventional automatic developing apparatus has been designed wherein a leader having a plurality of bores is fed through a conveyor passage in which a multiplicity of sprockets are disposed, while leading the film. In this type of automatic developing apparatus, however, a multiplicity of sprockets are unfavorably required, and it is troublesome to effect adjustment such that the distance between the adjacent sprockets is accurately maintained.